Sometimes relocating to a new office can be a good thing. Encompass Inc. moved in 2004 to Eden Prairie because the Bloomington office building where it occupied space was too tall and had to be removed for a runway expansion at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

After the move, the engineering firm, which specializes partly in forensic analysis of building failures, grew from eight to 15 employees in part by attracting large clients and more litigation work, said Rob Giesen, vice president of operations for Encompass.

The housing boom at the turn of the century led to some shoddy construction and lawsuits as 10-year warranties on those projects started lapsing, he said. That has increased the firm’s work for attorneys who need their construction expertise in lawsuits, Giesen said.

The company has worked on several major projects for Dakota and Washington counties, among them libraries and public buildings. A “signature” project was the Transportation Building near the Minnesota State Capitol.

The building’s 1,500-pound granite panels on the exterior — more than 1,000 of them — were in danger of falling. The $6 million overhaul was completed in 2009.

“The panels had to be taken off the building, cleaned and restored,” Giesen said. “We took that project from start to finish.”

Around the same time, Encompass helped oversee an $8 million restoration of the 12-building River Station in the Warehouse District of Minneapolis, he noted.

An earlier project in 2005 involved analyzing whether St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Shakopee could be saved after a fire nearly destroyed it. The church decided to restore the historic structure and hired Encompass to oversee the award-winning project. “It’s a beautiful church again,” he said.

Although Encompass stays busy with litigation, it has steered clear of legal disputes over the Interstate 35W bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in 2007 — for good reason.

Giesen said the company had done “a lot of work” for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. “We decided to stay out of it.”